University of Edinburgh joining JSTOR's alumni scheme

JSTOR responds

I recently contacted JSTOR on the vexed issue of access to research resources for independent scholars. I have had the following most helpful response from JSTOR's Education & Outreach section, although this does not yet solve the problem.

"JSTOR is working to expand options for researchers who have partial or no access to the content on JSTOR through a participating institution. The Register & Read beta program is the most recent development. We are hoping that the data from the program can help us better understand the needs of these researchers and how we can implement a broader subscription-type option for individuals. This will continue to take us some time to figure out. In the meantime, later this year we will be expanding Register & Read to include hundreds of journals beyond the 75 that were included in the initial launch of the program ... Another option that is quickly expanding is our Alumni Access pilot, more information at http://about.jstor.org/."

The Alumni scheme seems a good move and the list of those participating is interesting - it includes the especially prestigious Universities of Oxford and London.
There seems to be a lot of variation in the access offered by individual universities though and whether there is a fee or not for alumni. (It seems fair enough to have a reasonable fee applied, taking account of those not in full-time employment?)

JSTOR's 'register and read' is inadequate for researchers

JSTOR writes:

"we're hoping that the expanded Register & Read program will be useful for researchers while also providing us with information that can help inform a better model." 

Partial schemes - such as JSTOR's 'Register and Read' - cannot really serve as a serious research tool. This is because for an individual researcher, a small range of journals is very unlikely to include those needed among the hundreds used across different disciplines, or in cross-disciplinary work. For example, none of the journals that I might use is there (in areas of art history, cultural geography, nationalism studies, and tourism history). The JSTOR Outreach team has been very responsive to this view and is seeking alternatives such as the Alumni pilot.

JSTOR packages and the alumni program/me

From JSTOR's really helpful Education & Outreach section:

"Libraries are able to pick and choose packages of content for their institutions. JSTOR offers two types of journal collections, archive collections and current collections. Archive collections include the bulk of the backfiles of journals, from volume 1 up until about 3-5 years from the present. Librarians can also choose the current collections, which include a few past years of content through the most current issue. The current collections are relatively new to JSTOR - we began offering them in December 2010. The full archive collection includes about 1,600 titles, and we have current content for about 175 titles. In the alumni program, alumni have access to all of the archive content licensed by their alma mater.At this time, the alumni program does not included the current collections."

Who writes and reviews academic articles for free and then has to pay journals £23 per article to read them online?

(unless they are affiliated to a university and the university pays).

Clue: could be the same people.

Wikimedia and open access for research

Excellent web-post at: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/05/25/wikimedia-foundation-endorses-mandates-for-free-access-to-publicly-funded-research/

Stirrings of an academic spring

See The Guardian online 9 April 2012: 'Academic spring: how an angry maths blog sparked a scientific revolution' by Alok Jha
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/09/frustrated-blogpost-boycott-scientific-journals

Open University refuses online research access for alumni

From Alumni@open.ac.uk: "We currently do not offer access to the online library to the alumni community. We have been having ongoing talks with the library but do not see the situation changing in the near future".

I am astonished to see the Open University of all bodies give up so easily.